


Adorable Old Man

by snowbellewells



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowbellewells/pseuds/snowbellewells
Summary: My CS January Joy 2020 entry (the first one at least!)Killian Jones may not be aging exactly gracefully, but his wife and little girl find him doing so humorously and really quite adorably...
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Adorable Old Man

**“Adorable Old Man”**

_ By: @snowbellewells _

  
  


“Swan!” Killian’s rich voice, more than a bit overloud in their quiet house, boomed within the enclosing walls as if he still thought he was on his ship upon the rolling waves that slapped against its wooden sides. She had talked before about being able to hear him without his bellowing, but as he added, sounding rather out of sorts, “Can you help me for a moment, Love?” she just shook her head affectionately, well aware that some habits were hard to break.

As she neared the living room, she could also hear Hope giggling from where she had set her daughter up on the floor with the coffee table as her work space to spread out paper and crayons. It wasn’t an unusual arrangement, as Killian’s favorite reading spot was the chair in the corner where a window overlooked the harbor, and Hope always wanted to be following her papa around or settled near him.

Emma would not have thought it possible for anyone to be as enamored of her husband as she herself was - but their little girl could give her a run for her money. Hope looked at Killian as though he brought the sunrise and made the waves roll under the ship they both loved. Their little girl was every bit her father’s daughter, and much more pirate than princess. Not that Emma minded - the same could be said of her, despite how royal she might be by birth.

Even at four, Hope had a determined mind of her own - knowing what she wanted and determined to get it, regardless of what might stand in her way. They had tried to make her a permanent drawing table and organized drawers of supplies in her own room, but their wayward miniature buccaneer kept dragging all her paper and markers and crayons out to whatever room Killian settled in and had long since decided it was a battle not worth fighting about.

As Emma came down the last few steps to the first floor and entered the living room, she looked at both her husband and child for a moment, wondering what had amused Hope so much. Her eyes followed her preschooler’s gaze over to where Killian was fiddling with the wall thermostat in agitation. Even from across the room, she could hear him muttering to himself, more audibly than he probably realized. “Bloody cantakerous monstrosity! Can’t be blasted simple and straightforward to control…. Why aren’t you working?”

She tried valiantly - really she did - but it didn’t take long before she was biting back her own humored response to his exasperation. Moving into the room and over to her pirate, Emma winked at Hope conspiratorially and put a finger to her lips, not intending to have Killian catch them both laughing at him.

“Need a little help there, Babe?” she tried gently, a note of jest in her tone despite her best effort. He was simply too adorably flustered to resist teasing. She wasn’t sure why he was trying to crank up the heat anyway; it was unseasonably mild outside for January, not that cold at all. But there he was wearing a wool cardigan that made him look like a professor or an enticing reiteration of Mr. Rogers, bent over the thermostat dial as if he might start shivering and his teeth go to chattering if he didn’t master its function soon.

“Apparently so, Love,” he sighed wearily, taking a step back so she could see what the issue might be. “I’ve turned it up several degrees, and still have yet to hear that wretched furnace come to life.”

She shook her head once again upon seeing that the digital read was at nearly 76 degrees already. “Babe,” she sighed herself. “It’s not an instantaneous reaction. A sensor tells it when the house temperature has fallen below what we’ve set, and  _ then  _ it kicks on to regulate it back to that degree. Are you really still cold? I don’t think it’s fallen below the read out.”

Huffing in indignation, Killian turned those disgruntled baby blues on her mournfully, as if deeply betrayed she hadn’t taken his side. Rather than distracting from the entrancing power those eyes had always held over her, the bifocals he was prescribed about a year ago only seemed to make his glances twinkle all the more - with mischief, fire, or deeper emotion.

Running her fingers back through the tinged grey hair at his temples and scratching them through his scalp, she offered him a small half-smile. The action made a low rumble escape his lips, his forehead fell to rest on her shoulder as the tension in his own relaxed. She could feel him chuckling lightly, realizing how silly it all probably appeared. “My poor old man,” she crooned playfully, unable to resist a bit of teasing at her pirate’s expense. “Circulation failing you after 200 some years?”

With a snort, he pulled back, squinting at her behind those dark frames, mouth falling open at her unexpected jab. “Oi, Swan, watch who you’re calling old!”

He almost set her giggling once more with the knowledge that he had to pull back to focus on her better - just as he had taken to holding the newspaper further from him and back, along with his folio volumes of Yeats poetry and nautical adventure novels.

“Give it up,” she admonished, shaking her head at him as she patted his chest and pulled him over to the couch to sit curled together facing where Hope is still seated cross-legged and watching them rather than her forgotten drawing. “I’ll cuddle and keep you warm.”

Nodding in agreement, Killian wrapped his arms around her as she leaned against his chest, nuzzling her nose into his collarbone. “Bad form, teasing a man about things he cannot change,” he murmured into her hairline, briefly tickling her waist, but as she yelped and wiggled, he stopped, clearly preferring to hold her close. 

Hope watched the whole exchange between her parents avidly, a wide smile on her mischeivous face. When her papa looked up briefly to waggle his eyebrows at her and chide her teasingly, “That goes for you too, you little heathen.”

She chortled, “Silly Papa!” her voice unabashed and not in the least put off. She nodded her head, enthusiastically committed to her story now. With a peal of laughter, she gestured at him excitedly as she proclaimed, “Yes, yes...like Mr. Frederickson!”

“What now?” Killian’s brow furrowed in confusion, not understanding the reference and thinking Hope meant a person in town he hadn’t met. He shot Emma a curious look, even as he asked, “Who’s that, Little Love?”

Emma however sputtered with mirth when she realized Hope meant the elderly Pixar character in the movie they watched a few nights back. Her shoulders were shaking in silent laughter, even as she bit her lip against the guffaw struggling to break free. Gaining control after several seconds, she managed to turn to her husband and elaborate. “The cartoon, Babe.... You know, with the house carried by balloons…?”

Her pirate’s eyes widened with surprised recognition, before his head fell forward in playful defeat. So then, he took her as much by surprise as Hope when his face suddenly shot back up as he lunged forward to tickle her wildly. “You take that back!” he threatened humorously. Soon the two of them were on the floor; Hope squealing, Killian growling, and the both of them tickling and pouncing as they rolled across the living room in a tangle of arms and legs. 

Eventually, they stopped to catch their breath, and Emma hauled both of them back up onto the couch with her. Lounging comfortably again, Emma mumbled against his cheek, “I hate to say it, but she has a point. All you really need are the hearing aids,” knowing all too well how it would rile her husband up again.

“That’ll be the day, Wife,” he muttered lowly, voice brushing against her ear in a way that made her shiver deliciously and drop all pretense of teasing. Then he was on her and tickling as mercilessly as he had done with Hope.

When she finally escaped and headed for the kitchen to find something for dinner, his pleased retort followed her from the room, “As you can see, I’m still more spry than that Frederickson fellow!”

And that night in their bed, Emma more than conceded that despite his complaints of the cold throughout the day, her pirate generated more than enough heat to keep them both warm until morning.


End file.
